


Along the Path of Totality

by burymeonpluto



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Allegory, Drabble, Kiss it better, Light and Darkness, M/M, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22501066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeonpluto/pseuds/burymeonpluto
Summary: He is darkness incarnate. The icy-cold touch of ruin.And he completes Sora in a way that neither of them can do without.
Relationships: Sora/Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 92





	Along the Path of Totality

  
  
They don’t know which of the two came first, but they have always existed. They have always lived in tandem like this. Even when they're left unaware.  
  
They are opposing forces without aggression. It’s never been a battle for supremacy—they are simply intertwined. Woven together at the seams with an intricate, unbreakable stitch.  
  
Sora knows the importance of Darkness. As Light itself, he has to. One exists by the definition of the other. Neither good nor evil. Two sides of the same card.  
  
The Light is warm, and revealing. A blinding supernova with no shadows or obstructions. There’s nowhere to hide.  
  
The Darkness is the unknown. Sora’s sight can’t penetrate it at all. It’s a blanket of shadows to throw over his head. There’s no telling what lurks inside. It’s filled with such anguish and negativity, like a bottomless pit.  
  
They are equal abysses. Hollow and endless.  
  
And still, when he feels like he has nowhere else to turn, Sora will slip his hand beneath the choppy black water. Feel the coolness coat his fingers as his muscles come alive. At last, there will be break in the nothingness. Something other than the tingling static of overwhelming warmth. Nothing but the ghost of touch. Nothing substantial.  
  
Sora could dive in entirely and let the relief of sensation wash over him like an ice bath. He could let it calm his searing skin. Red-hot blisters giving way to goosebumps like a trail of fingerprints. Down his arms. His aching legs. The curve of his neck and cradling his cheek.  
  
It’s always the same touch. Like an old, reliable friend. The whisper of a lover in his ear. Torrid and familiar.   
  
He’s a lingering constant in the white noise of Sora’s mind. Forever murmuring in the background with snide little comments or cool, blunt statements that send a shiver down his spine. Sora wouldn’t know how to exist without him there, filling in the gaps where he lacks. Standing at his back like a shadow—molded completely against him. A cool, shady reprieve when he starts seeing spots before his eyes.  
  
Sora feels that familiar brush against his cheek. The shadows whisper their soft words: “Come on. Let me have it.”  
  
He presses his hands against that dark chest. Fingertips dig like they could pass right through his skin. Sora lets the warmth seep out of him, and Vanitas greedily soaks it in as if starving. “Your heart,” Sora murmurs, “is it cold?”  
  
Vanitas’s fingertips trace the outline of Sora’s body, snatching every last ounce of heat he’s willing to relinquish. His breath is slow, and trembling in his chest. “Not always.”  
  
Sora searches beneath muscle and finds the divots in Vanitas’s rib cage. He wants to slip through the bars and find his heart—like an apple frozen solid on its branch—and let it thaw against his palms. Let the cool condensation drip down his hands as the apple ripens once again. But he can’t do that. He can only bury his face in the crook of Vanitas’s neck, cold and slick like he’s already beginning to melt. “Is it cold now?” Sora asks.  
  
“How could it be?” he says, pulling Sora entirely against him. “You’re right here.”  
  
Heat radiates from Sora’s chest like a tidal wave, and Vanitas softly laughs against his ear.  
  
“Looks like I struck a nerve.”  
  
Sora pouts, and his pursed lips gently graze the skin of Vanitas’s neck. Sora feels him shiver. “I could say the same,” he smirks.   
  
Vanitas closes in over him, as if he could curl entirely around him and envelope and smother him.  
  
Sora’s hand finds his cheek, cold and smooth as a steel plate. He pulls Vanitas close, letting cool skin ease the burning in his own cheeks. His forehead. His eyelids that shield blue irises like a bright burning sky. Their lips meet, and the ice bath finally douses Sora’s heart—sizzling against the heat and vaporizing. Sora gasps for air and his breath comes out in huge puffs of steam.   
  
Vanitas’s breath is an icy wind against his face. “Better?”  
  
Sora shakes his head. Sweat glistens stubbornly along his brow. “Again.”  
  
Vanitas kisses him once more, firm and cold. He drinks the heat from Sora’s body—inhales the steam pouring from his lips like it’s nothing.   
  
“Again,” Sora shudders.  
  
“You’re awfully greedy,” he grins, frosted fingers gliding over Sora’s jawline.  
  
Sora tugs him in anyway. Pours the warmth directly into him until he trembles and groans against the press of their lips. Until the furnace churning in Sora’s chest has calmed, and Vanitas has turned to slush beneath his touch. Sora leans back and watches those eyes, unfeeling gold melting into a deep, passionate red. “Better?” he mimics.  
  
Cool hands slip around Sora’s face. “If you can call it that,” Vanitas mumbles.  
  
“I know... It never lasts long enough.”  
  
“Stay with me,” he pleas in a choked whisper.  
  
Sora wants to. More than anything. “I can’t. It’s absolute.”  
  
“To hell with absolutes.”  
  
Sora pries Vanitas’s hands away, holding them firmly within his own. “If we mix too long, we’ll become the same. You’ll cease to exist.”  
  
“And what’s wrong with that?” he croaks.  
  
“I’ll miss you.”  
  
Vanitas snorts. His grip tightens around Sora’s fingers. “But you won’t exist either, stupid.”   
  
“I’ll come back, and I’ll miss you,” he says matter-of-factly.  
  
“Just like that?” he chuckles.  
  
“Yeah. Just like that. You’ll see.”  
  
Vanitas sighs and leans in close, as if soaking it all in one last time. The last blast of heat before returning to the cold. “Then, go,” he murmurs. “Prove your absolute.”  
  
Sora takes one final drink of cold from Vanitas’s lips. “I will. Just watch.” And he steps away, already missing the icy touch.  
  
Vanitas lets him go.  
  
He emerges from the shallows and into the blazing heat of the sun. Tendrils of darkness linger along his hands, fingers, and legs like loose ends of thread, before silently retracting back into their murky depths. Sora feels his skin glow with heat and sunburn, but his heart is temperate. His shadow stays beside him, as he always has. Fathomless and comforting.   
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I have a baseless, long-standing theory that Sora is some kind of personification of Light, so... what if Vanitas is the Darkness? KH3: "What I am is Darkness." He's not subtle. I also like playing with allegories~
> 
> @VaniVeniVici


End file.
